思科 (CSCO) 2024 Q2 法說會逐字稿

Welcome to Cisco's Second Quarter Fiscal Year 2024 Financial Results Conference Call. At the request of Cisco, today's conference is being recorded. If you have any objections, you may disconnect.

歡迎參加思科 2024 財年第二季財務業績電話會議。應思科的要求，今天的會議正在錄製中。如果有異議可以斷開連接。

Now I would like to introduce Sami Badri, Head of Investor Relations. Sir, you may begin.

現在我想介紹投資者關係主管 Sami Badri。先生，您可以開始了。

Welcome, everyone, to Cisco's Second Quarter Fiscal Year '24 Conference Call. This is Sami Badri, Cisco's Head of Investor Relations, and I'm joined by Chuck Robbins, our Chair and CEO; and Scott Herren, our CFO. By now, you should have seen our earnings press release. A corresponding webcast with slides, including supplemental information, will be available on our website in the Investor Relations section following the call.

歡迎大家參加思科 24 財年第二季電話會議。我是思科投資者關係主管薩米‧巴德里 (Sami Badri)，與我一起發言的還有我們的董事長兼執行長查克‧羅賓斯 (Chuck Robbins)；以及我們的財務長 Scott Herren。現在，您應該已經看到我們的收益新聞稿了。電話會議結束後，我們的網站將在投資者關係部分提供相應的網路直播和幻燈片，其中包括補充資訊。

Income statements, full GAAP to non-GAAP reconciliation information, balance sheets, cash flow statements and other financial information can also be found in the Financial Information section of our Investor Relations website. Throughout this conference call, we'll be referencing both GAAP and non-GAAP financial results, and we'll discuss product results in terms of revenue and geographic and customer results in terms of product orders unless stated otherwise. All comparisons are made throughout this call will be on a year-over-year basis.

損益表、完整的 GAAP 與非 GAAP 調節資訊、資產負債表、現金流量表和其他財務資訊也可以在我們的投資者關係網站的財務資訊部分找到。在整個電話會議中，我們將參考 GAAP 和非 GAAP 財務結果，並且我們將從收入方面討論產品結果，從產品訂單方面討論地理和客戶結果，除非另有說明。本次電話會議中的所有比較均以同比為基礎。

The matters we'll be discussing today include forward-looking statements, including the guidance we will be providing for the third quarter and full year of fiscal 2024. They are subject to the risks and uncertainties that we discuss in detail in our documents filed with the SEC, specifically the most recent report on Forms 10-K and 10-Q, which identify important risk factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements.

我們今天將要討論的事項包括前瞻性陳述，包括我們將為 2024 財年第三季和全年提供的指導。它們受我們在提交給美國證券交易委員會的文件中詳細討論的風險和不確定性的影響，特別是最新的 10-K 和 10-Q 表格報告，其中確定了可能導致實際結果與前瞻性陳述中的結果存在重大差異的重要風險因素。

With respect to guidance, please feel free to see the slides and press release that accompany this call for further details. Cisco will not comment on its financial guidance during the quarter unless it is done through an explicit public disclosure.

關於指導，請隨意查看本次電話會議附帶的幻燈片和新聞稿以了解更多詳細資訊。除非透過明確的公開揭露，否則思科不會對本季的財務指引發表評論。

I will now turn it over to Chuck.

現在我將把發言權交給查克。

Thanks, Sami, and thank you all for joining us today. We delivered a solid Q2 performance with revenue coming in at the high end of our guidance range. Strong operating leverage across our business drove our margins, which exceeded the high end of our expectations and allowed us to deliver better-than-anticipated earnings per share. In Q2, we once again returned a total of $2.8 billion in value through dividends and share repurchases.

謝謝，薩米，也謝謝大家今天加入我們。我們第二季的業績表現穩健，營收達到了預期範圍的高端。我們業務的強大營運槓桿推動了我們的利潤率，超出了我們的預期上限，並使我們實現了好於預期的每股盈餘。在第二季度，我們再次透過股利和股票回購返還了總計 28 億美元的價值。

We also announced today another increase to Cisco's dividend payout rate, reaffirming our ongoing commitment to returning significant value to our shareholders through consistent capital returns. Overall, our Q2 results continue to advance our strategic business transformation around driving higher levels of software subscriptions and annualized recurring revenue or ARR, both of which showed performance gains in the quarter.

我們今天也宣布再次提高思科的股利支付率，並重申我們透過持續的資本回報為股東帶來重大價值的承諾。總體而言，我們的第二季業績繼續推進我們的策略業務轉型，推動更高水準的軟體訂閱和年度經常性收入或 ARR，這兩項在本季度均顯示出業績成長。

Our pending acquisition of Splunk also further supports our transformation strategy by fueling stronger growth, expanding our portfolio of software-based solutions and generating higher levels of ARR with roughly $4 billion in additional ARR expected upon closing and will make us one of the largest software companies in the world.

我們即將收購 Splunk，這將進一步支持我們的轉型策略，推動更強勁的成長，擴大我們的軟體解決方案組合，並產生更高水準的 ARR，預計收購完成後將額外產生約 40 億美元的 ARR，並將使我們成為世界上最大的軟體公司之一。

Before turning to our performance in the quarter, I'd like to start by commenting on the demand environment. First, in terms of the macro environment, we are seeing a greater degree of caution and scrutiny of deals given the high level of uncertainty. As we're hearing this from our customers, it's leading us to be more cautious with our forecast and expectations. Second, as we discussed last quarter and subsequently saw in other technology provider results, customers have been taking time since the start of our fiscal 2024 to deploy the elevated levels of products shipped to them in recent quarters, and this is taking longer than our initial expectations. Third, we also continue to see weak demand with our telco and cable service provider customers. This industry has seen significant pressure, and they are adjusting deployment phasing, which is weighing on our business outlook.

在談到我們本季的業績之前，我想先評論一下需求環境。首先，就宏觀環境而言，由於不確定性較高，我們看到人們對交易的謹慎程度和審查程度有所提高。當我們從客戶那裡聽到這個消息時，我們對我們的預測和期望更加謹慎。其次，正如我們上個季度所討論的以及隨後在其他技術提供商的結果中看到的，自 2024 財年開始以來，客戶一直在花時間部署最近幾個季度向他們運送的高水平產品，而這比我們最初預期的時間要長。第三，我們也看到電信和有線電視服務供應商客戶的需求持續疲軟。這個行業面臨著巨大的壓力，他們正在調整部署階段，這對我們的業務前景造成了壓力。

Given these factors, we are adjusting our expenses and investments to reflect the current environment. That said, for the product categories in which we can measure customer inventory absorption through connections to the cloud, we are seeing steady progress. However, based on conversations with customers, we still believe we are 1 to 2 quarters away from full implementation of their inventory, which, as I mentioned, is longer than we expected. We continue to track Meraki activations, which are moving slightly faster in wireless and slightly slower in switching. Using our Meraki business as a proxy for our wider enterprise networking portfolio, we expect the current implementation of shipped products to be broadly complete by the end of fiscal 2024.

考慮到這些因素，我們正在調整我們的支出和投資以反映當前的環境。也就是說，對於我們可以透過雲端連線來衡量客戶庫存吸收的產品類別，我們看到了穩定的進展。然而，根據與客戶的對話，我們仍然認為距離全面實施他們的庫存還有 1 到 2 個季度的時間，正如我所提到的，這比我們預期的要長。我們繼續追蹤 Meraki 的啟動情況，其在無線方面的移動速度略快，而在切換方面的移動速度略慢。以我們的 Meraki 業務作為我們更廣泛的企業網路產品組合的代理，我們預計目前已發貨產品的實施將在 2024 財年末大致完成。

Looking at our wireless business as an example, we are encouraged by the number of orders of $1 million or more, which increased approximately 50% sequentially in Q2. This indicates that many wireless customers have finished absorbing what we've shipped to them and are preparing for larger deployments in the coming months. Our team is also partnering closely with customers to assist with this heightened focus on deployments of Cisco equipment on hand, contributing to our services revenue increase year-over-year. It's also worth noting that nonhardware-centric revenue in areas such as Security and Collaboration increased, and our Observability offerings grew double digits year-over-year. Finally, despite the near-term challenges, our win rates are stable and on a rolling 4-quarter basis, our market share remained steady in 3 of our 4 largest markets.

以我們的無線業務為例，我們對 100 萬美元或以上的訂單數量感到鼓舞，該數量在第二季度環比增長了約 50%。這表明許多無線客戶已經完成了我們向他們提供的產品的吸收，並為未來幾個月的更大規模部署做準備。我們的團隊也與客戶密切合作，協助他們更加重視現有思科設備的部署，以促進我們的服務收入年增。另外值得注意的是，安全和協作等領域的非硬體中心收入有所增加，我們的可觀察性產品比去年同期成長了兩位數。最後，儘管面臨近期挑戰，但我們的勝率仍然穩定，並且連續 4 個季度，我們在 4 個最大市場中的 3 個市場的份額保持穩定。

Now moving on to our performance in Q2. As I mentioned earlier, our performance in the quarter was broadly in line with or better than our Q2 expectations. Given the trust our customers place in us and the criticality of our technologies to the outcomes our customers are seeking, I am confident about the foundational strength of our portfolio and our future growth opportunities. With our innovation, we deliver and enable our customers to deploy next-generation applications in a highly secure manner.

現在來看看我們第二季的表現。正如我之前提到的，我們本季的業績基本上符合或優於第二季的預期。鑑於客戶對我們的信任以及我們的技術對客戶所尋求的結果的重要性，我對我們的產品組合的基礎實力和未來的成長機會充滿信心。透過我們的創新，我們為客戶提供並使他們能夠以高度安全的方式部署下一代應用程式。

As part of this, we help facilitate their growth through our products and services so that when our customers adopt new technologies, we grow alongside them. We continue to accelerate our innovation across high-growth areas. Last week at Cisco Live EMEA, we announced new capabilities in networking, furthering our vision for the Cisco Networking Cloud. We also announced several new capabilities across our Security, Collaboration and Observability portfolios, leveraging AI throughout.

作為其中的一部分，我們透過我們的產品和服務來幫助促進他們的成長，以便當我們的客戶採用新技術時，我們也能與他們一起成長。我們持續加速高成長領域的創新。上週在 Cisco Live EMEA 上，我們宣布了網路方面的新功能，進一步推進了我們對思科網路雲端的願景。我們還宣布了安全、協作和可觀察性產品組合中的幾項新功能，並在整個過程中利用了人工智慧。

We also continue to capitalize on the multibillion-dollar AI infrastructure opportunity. This quarter, we announced the next phase in our partnership with NVIDIA to offer enterprises simplified, cloud-based and on-prem AI infrastructure. This includes both networking hardware and software to support advanced AI workloads. We are clear beneficiaries of AI adoption, and this partnership further demonstrates the central role we play in AI and the overall technology ecosystem. Our combined solution will be sold through our extensive global channel with professional services and support from key partners who are committed to helping businesses deploy their GPU clusters via Ethernet infrastructure.

我們也將繼續利用價值數十億美元的人工智慧基礎設施機會。本季度，我們宣布與 NVIDIA 合作進入下一階段，為企業提供簡化的、基於雲端的和內部部署的 AI 基礎架構。這包括支援高級 AI 工作負載的網路硬體和軟體。我們是人工智慧應用的明顯受益者，這種合作關係進一步證明了我們在人工智慧和整個技術生態系統中所扮演的核心角色。我們的組合解決方案將透過我們廣泛的全球管道銷售，並獲得主要合作夥伴的專業服務和支持，他們致力於幫助企業透過乙太網路基礎設施部署其 GPU 叢集。

In webscale, we continue to see momentum with 3 of the top 4 customers deploying our hyperscale Ethernet AI fabric, leveraging Cisco-validated designs for AI infrastructure. While there is tremendous opportunity ahead, we are still in the early stages of adoption of AI workloads.

在網路規模方面，我們繼續看到成長勢頭，前四大客戶中的三家部署了我們的超大規模乙太網路 AI 結構，並利用思科驗證的 AI 基礎設施設計。儘管未來有巨大的機遇，但我們仍處於採用人工智慧工作負載的早期階段。

In Security, we continue to execute against our product road map to deliver the industry's most comprehensive unified platform with end-to-end solutions. This quarter, we introduced Cisco Identity Intelligence, an analytics layer that pulls data from identity infrastructure and performs behavior-based assessments to help protect against identity-based attacks, which are at the forefront of cyber threats today. AI is also becoming more pervasive across the Cisco Security Cloud. For example, our new AI Assistant and Secure Access lets customers create security access policies using natural language prompts, reducing errors and speeding up policy administration by 70%. Our new security solutions like XDR and Secure Access are ramping quickly after being launched this fall with now over 230 Cisco XDR customers. Over the next 6 months, you can expect more meaningful announcements across the portfolio through our accelerated organic innovation and inorganic investments.

在安全方面，我們繼續按照我們的產品路線圖執行，以提供業界最全面的統一平台和端到端解決方案。本季度，我們推出了思科身分智能，這是一個分析層，可以從身分基礎架構中提取資料並執行基於行為的評估，以幫助防範基於身分的攻擊，而這種攻擊是當今網路威脅的前沿。人工智慧在思科安全雲中也變得越來越普遍。例如，我們的新 AI 助理和安全存取讓客戶可以使用自然語言提示建立安全存取策略，從而減少錯誤並將策略管理速度提高 70%。我們的新安全解決方案（如 XDR 和安全存取）於今年秋季推出後迅速發展，目前已擁有超過 230 個 Cisco XDR 客戶。在接下來的 6 個月裡，您可以期待透過我們加速的有機創新和無機投資在整個投資組合中發布更多有意義的公告。

In addition, we have now extended our AI-powered ThousandEyes into Cisco Secure Access, joining past integrations with AppDynamics, Webex, Catalyst and Meraki platforms. ThousandEyes allows our customers to understand the digital experience of users, applications and things through billions of daily measurements of the Internet and public SaaS as well as thousands of enterprise customers, creating best-in-class digital experiences for users.

此外，我們現在已將基於人工智慧的 ThousandEyes 擴展到 Cisco Secure Access，並加入了過去與 AppDynamics、Webex、Catalyst 和 Meraki 平台的整合。 ThousandEyes 透過對網路和公共 SaaS 以及數千家企業客戶的數十億次日常測量，使我們的客戶能夠了解用戶、應用程式和事物的數位體驗，為用戶創造一流的數位體驗。

In Observability, we introduced the Cisco Digital Experience Monitoring application, providing deep insights into the performance of browser and mobile applications and efficient resolution of session-level issues. Our continued generative AI innovations build upon our existing platform capabilities, further enabling operations teams to focus on what matters most: minimizing tools for all, improving overall performance and delivering highly secure digital experiences.

在可觀察性方面，我們引入了思科數位體驗監控應用程序，深入了解瀏覽器和行動應用程式的效能並有效解決會話層級問題。我們持續的生成性人工智慧創新建立在我們現有的平台功能之上，進一步使營運團隊能夠專注於最重要的事情：最大限度地減少所有人的工具，提高整體性能並提供高度安全的數位體驗。

Going back to the pending Splunk acquisition, the combination of Splunk's complementary capabilities with ours and AI, Security and Observability will create an end-to-end data platform to enhance our customers' digital resiliency. We are excited that together, we will bring trusted innovation leadership, an outstanding go-to-market engine and a world-class culture that will help our customers achieve their technology outcomes with innovative products and solutions.

回顧即將進行的 Splunk 收購，Splunk 的互補能力與我們的能力以及 AI、安全性和可觀察性的結合將創建一個端到端資料平台，以增強我們客戶的數位彈性。我們很高興能夠攜手合作，帶來值得信賴的創新領導力、卓越的市場進入引擎和世界一流的文化，幫助我們的客戶透過創新的產品和解決方案實現他們的技術成果。

I would also like to provide a brief update on timing. While the closing of the acquisition of Splunk remains subject to regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions, given the positive progress to date on the required regulatory approvals, we now expect to close the transaction late in the first quarter or early in the second quarter of calendar year 2024, which is in our fiscal third quarter.

我還想簡單介紹一下時間安排。儘管對 Splunk 的收購仍需獲得監管部門的批准並滿足其他慣例成交條件，但鑑於迄今為止在所需監管部門批准方面取得的積極進展，我們目前預計將在 2024 日曆年第一季末或第二季度初完成交易，也就是我們的第三財季。

Before I turn it over to Scott, let me summarize 3 key takeaways. First, we have reset our expectations for the second half of the year given the cautious macro environment, our customers absorbing high levels of inventory and ongoing weakness in service provider. Second, you can count on us to take a disciplined approach regardless of the environment. We remain committed to operating leverage, capital allocation and expense management. Lastly, our portfolio continues to get stronger and stronger every day. While we have work in front of us and despite the current environment, we remain confident in our long-term strategy. We are relentlessly focused on our commitment to driving long-term value for our shareholders and industry-leading innovation for our customers.

在交給斯科特之前，讓我總結一下 3 個關鍵要點。首先，鑑於謹慎的宏觀環境、客戶吸收高額庫存以及服務提供者持續疲軟，我們重新調整了對下半年的預期。其次，無論環境如何，您都可以相信我們都會採取嚴謹的態度。我們仍然致力於經營槓桿、資本配置和費用管理。最後，我們的投資組合每天都在變得越來越強大。儘管我們面前還有許多工作要做，儘管當前的環境如此，我們仍然對我們的長期策略充滿信心。我們始終堅持不懈地致力於為股東創造長期價值，為客戶帶來業界領先的創新。

I'll now turn it over to Scott to provide more detail on the quarter and our outlook.

現在我將把時間交給史考特，讓他提供有關本季和我們展望的更多細節。

Thanks, Chuck. Our Q2 results reflect solid execution again with strong margins and increasing operating leverage. For the quarter, total revenue was at the high end of our guidance range at $12.8 billion, down 6% year-over-year. Non-GAAP net income was $3.5 billion, down 3%, and non-GAAP earnings per share was above the high end of our guidance range at $0.87, down 1%.

謝謝，查克。我們第二季的業績再次反映穩健的執行力、強勁的利潤率和不斷提高的經營槓桿。本季度，總收入達到我們預期範圍的高端，為 128 億美元，年減 6%。非公認會計準則淨收入為 35 億美元，下降 3%，非公認會計準則每股收益高於我們預期範圍的高端，為 0.87 美元，下降 1%。

Looking at our Q2 revenue in more detail, total product revenue was $9.2 billion, down 9%, and service revenue was $3.6 billion, up 4%. Networking, our largest product category, was down 12%. We saw declines across switching, wireless and routed optical networking driven primarily by weakness in the enterprise and service provider and cloud markets.

更詳細地看一下我們第二季的收入，總產品收入為 92 億美元，下降 9%，服務收入為 36 億美元，成長 4%。我們最大的產品類別網路下降了 12%。我們發現交換、無線和路由光纖網路出現下滑，這主要是由於企業、服務供應商和雲端市場的疲軟所致。

Security was up 3% with our Zero Trust offering growing double digits. Collaboration was up 3% driven by growth in collaboration devices and calling partially offset by a decline in meetings. Observability was up 16% driven by growth across the portfolio with continued strength in ThousandEyes network services. As Chuck mentioned, ThousandEyes helps monitor and assure digital experience everywhere, on-premise, Internet and the cloud.

隨著我們的零信任服務實現兩位數成長，安全性提高了 3%。協作成長了 3%，這得益於協作設備和通話的成長，但會議數量的下降部分抵消了這一增長。受整個投資組合成長的推動，可觀測性成長了 16%，而 ThousandEyes 網路服務則持續保持強勁。正如 Chuck 所提到的，ThousandEyes 有助於監控和確保本地、網路和雲端等各個地方的數位體驗。

We continue to make progress on our transformation to more recurring revenue-based offerings. We saw strong performance in our ARR of $24.7 billion, which increased 6%, with product ARR growth of 9%. Total software revenue was flat at $4.2 billion, with software subscription revenue up 5%. 88% of our software revenue was subscription-based.

我們在向更多基於經常性收入的產品轉型方面繼續取得進展。我們的 ARR 表現強勁，達到 247 億美元，成長 6%，產品 ARR 成長 9%。軟體總收入持平於 42 億美元，軟體訂閱收入成長 5%。我們的軟體收入的 88% 都是基於訂閱的。

Total subscription revenue increased 6% to $6.4 billion, which now represents 50% of Cisco's total revenue, an increase of 6 percentage points over last year. RPO was $35.7 billion, up 12% year-over-year. Product and service RPO both increased 12%. In total, short-term RPO was $17.9 billion, up 6%. Q2 product orders declined 12%, a significant improvement from Q1 as customers continue to work down product shipments from prior quarters.

總訂閱收入成長 6%，達到 64 億美元，佔思科總營收的 50%，比去年增加了 6 個百分點。 RPO 為 357 億美元，年增 12%。產品和服務的RPO均成長了12%。整體而言，短期RPO為179億美元，成長6%。第二季產品訂單下降了 12%，與第一季相比有顯著改善，因為客戶繼續減少前幾季的產品出貨量。

Looking at our geographic segments year-over-year, the Americas was down 10%, EMEA down 8%, and APJC was down 27%. In our customer markets, service provider and cloud was down 40%, enterprise was down 6%, and public sector was down 5%. Backlog at the end of Q2 has now returned to normal levels.

從年比來看，我們的地理區域下降了，美洲下降了 10%，歐洲、中東和非洲地區下降了 8%，亞太及日本地區下降了 27%。在我們的客戶市場中，服務供應商和雲端下降了 40%，企業下降了 6%，公共部門下降了 5%。第二季末的積壓訂單現已恢復到正常水準。

Total non-GAAP gross margin came in at 66.7% up 280 basis points year-over-year and above the high end of our guidance range. Product gross margin was 65.2%, up 310 basis points. The improvement was driven primarily by lower freight and component costs and favorable product mix partially offset by negative impact on pricing. Service gross margin was 70.5%, up 140 basis points.

非公認會計準則總毛利率達到 66.7%，比去年同期成長 280 個基點，高於我們預期範圍的高端。產品毛利率為65.2%，上升310個基點。這項改善主要得益於運費和零件成本的降低以及有利的產品組合，但定價受到的負面影響部分抵消了這一影響。服務毛利率為70.5%，上漲140個基點。

Non-GAAP operating margin came in at 33%, up 50 basis points and exceeding the high end of our guidance range. Strong non-GAAP gross margin and continued cost management drove the leverage.

非公認會計準則營業利潤率為 33%，上升 50 個基點，超過我們預期範圍的高端。強勁的非公認會計準則毛利率和持續的成本管理推動了槓桿的提升。

Further, we are realigning our investments and expenses to reflect the current environment to help maximize long-term value for our shareholders. As part of our announced restructuring plan, we expect to impact approximately 5% of our global workforce with estimated pretax charges of approximately $800 million.

此外，我們正在重新調整投資和支出以反映當前環境，以幫助最大化股東的長期價值。作為我們宣布的重組計畫的一部分，我們預計將影響全球約 5% 的員工，預計稅前費用約為 8 億美元。

Shifting to the balance sheet. We ended Q2 with total cash, cash equivalents and investments of $25.7 billion. Consistent with our expectations, operating cash flow was $800 million driven in large part by the timing of federal tax payments and the higher annual payment of the TCJA transition tax.

轉向資產負債表。截至第二季末，我們的現金、現金等價物及投資總額為 257 億美元。與我們的預期一致，營運現金流為 8 億美元，這在很大程度上受到聯邦稅繳納時間和 TCJA 過渡稅年度繳納額較高的推動。

This quarter, we returned $2.8 billion to shareholders comprised of $1.6 billion for our quarterly cash dividend and $1.3 billion of share repurchases. Year-to-date, we have returned $5.7 billion in value to shareholders, and we plan to continue our share repurchases at the current quarterly level throughout fiscal 2024. Increasing shareholder returns through greater operating leverage, maintaining a higher level of annual share repurchases and growing our dividend is consistent with our capital allocation strategy.

本季度，我們向股東返還了 28 億美元，其中包括 16 億美元的季度現金股利和 13 億美元的股票回購。年初至今，我們已向股東返還了 57 億美元的價值，並計劃在 2024 財年繼續以當前季度水準進行股票回購。透過提高經營槓桿來增加股東回報、維持更高水準的年度股票回購、增加股利符合我們的資本配置策略。

Given the confidence we have in our business today, we announced we are raising our dividend by $0.01 to $0.40 per quarter. This dividend increase demonstrates our commitment to returning a minimum of 50% of free cash flow annually to our shareholders and our confidence in the strength of our ongoing cash flows.

鑑於我們對目前業務的信心，我們宣布將每季股息提高 0.01 美元至 0.40 美元。此次股息成長顯示我們致力於每年向股東返還至少 50% 的自由現金流，並且對持續現金流的強勁表現充滿信心。

To summarize, we executed well with continued strong margins and increased operating leverage as we help our customers complete record deployments and implementations. We continue to progress our business model shift to more recurring revenue. We are strategically investing in innovation to capitalize on our growth opportunities and are committed to delivering long-term shareholder value.

總而言之，在幫助客戶完成創紀錄的部署和實施的過程中，我們表現良好，利潤率持續強勁，經營槓桿不斷提高。我們將繼續推動業務模式轉型，以獲得更多經常性收入。我們正在策略性地投資創新，以利用我們的成長機會，並致力於實現長期股東價值。

With regard to our proposed acquisition of Splunk, we continue to work through regulatory approvals and closing conditions and as Chuck mentioned, we're optimistic that it will close ahead of what we had originally anticipated. We have not included any impact from the Splunk acquisition in our forward-looking guidance.

關於我們提議的對 Splunk 的收購，我們將繼續努力獲得監管部門的批准和成交條件，正如 Chuck 所提到的，我們樂觀地認為該收購將比我們最初預期的提前完成。我們的前瞻性指引中並未包含收購 Splunk 的任何影響。

Turning to our guidance. As previously mentioned, we have reset our expectations for the second half of the year to account for the caution around macro uncertainty, the continued absorption by our customers of record levels of product shipments they received from us and the weakness of our service provider market. For Q3, our guidance is as follows. We expect revenue to be in the range of $12.1 billion to $12.3 billion. We anticipate the non-GAAP gross margin to be in the range of 66% to 67%. Non-GAAP operating margin is expected to be in the range of 33.5% to 34.5%. Non-GAAP earnings per share is expected to range from $0.84 to $0.86.

轉向我們的指導。如前所述，我們已經重新調整了對下半年的預期，以應對宏觀不確定性帶來的謹慎、客戶繼續吸收我們收到的創紀錄水平的產品出貨量以及服務提供商市場的疲軟。對於第三季度，我們的指導如下。我們預計營收將在 121 億美元至 123 億美元之間。我們預計非公認會計準則毛利率將在 66% 至 67% 之間。非公認會計準則營業利潤率預計在 33.5% 至 34.5% 之間。非公認會計準則每股收益預計在 0.84 美元至 0.86 美元之間。

For fiscal year '24, our guidance is as follows. We expect revenue to be in the range of $51.5 billion to $52.5 billion. Non-GAAP earnings per share guidance is expected to range from $3.68 to $3.74. In both our Q3 and full year guidance, we're assuming a non-GAAP effective tax rate of 19%. Sami, let's now move into the Q&A.

對於 24 財年，我們的指導如下。我們預計營收將在 515 億美元至 525 億美元之間。非公認會計準則每股收益預計在 3.68 美元至 3.74 美元之間。在我們的第三季和全年指引中，我們都假設非 GAAP 有效稅率為 19%。薩米，現在我們進入問答環節。

Thank you, Scott. (Operator Instructions) Operator, can we move to the first analyst in the queue?

謝謝你，斯科特。 （操作員指示）操作員，我們可以轉到佇列中的第一位分析師嗎？

Amit Daryanani with Evercore.

Evercore 的 Amit Daryanani。

I'll ask both my questions upfront. Chuck, when I think about the lower revenue guide for the full year by about 500 basis points versus 90 days ago, can you just touch on how much of that do you think is the digestion getting extended versus the macro versus the telco weakness? And then how do you sort of think about getting back to a positive revenue cadence organically?

我會提前提出這兩個問題。查克，當我想到全年收入預期比 90 天前低了約 500 個基點時，您能否談談，您認為其中有多少是消化過程延長了，而不是宏觀經濟和電信業的疲軟？那麼，您如何看待自然而然地恢復正收入節奏呢？

And then as a follow-up, I'd love to just understand this, in media announcement you folks had, there's a bit of a perception that it's more about servers, less about networking. I would love for you to just flesh that out, what that means to Cisco.

然後作為後續問題，我很想了解這一點，在你們的媒體公告中，人們有點認為它與伺服器有關，而不是與網路有關。我希望您能夠具體解釋一下，這對思科來說意味著什麼。

Amit, thank you very much. So obviously, with the lower guide, we talked about the feeling that there's some macro uncertainty. We talked to our teams in preparation for this, and they obviously submitted their forecast. And what we really saw was what they previously told us 90 days ago relative to the second half versus what they told us a couple of weeks ago had changed materially, which means customers are pushing things out and putting a little more scrutiny on them. So that's the difference that we've seen.

阿米特，非常感謝。因此，顯然，在較低的指導價下，我們談論了存在一些宏觀不確定性的感覺。我們與我們的團隊進行了交談，為此做好了準備，他們顯然提交了他們的預測。我們真正看到的是，他們 90 天前告訴我們的下半年情況與幾週前告訴我們的情況發生了重大變化，這意味著客戶正在推遲事情並對其進行更嚴格的審查。這就是我們所看到的區別。

As far as trying to break down what percentage comes from each of those -- the 3, including the digestion issue as well as the telco and SP piece, I think it's pretty difficult to do, honestly. However, I will say that we think that the consumption of the elevated inventory levels should be -- we should be through that by the end of our fiscal year. We think that the SP telcos -- the SP telco and cable side of it, we're hopeful that in '25, they will begin investing again. We originally had anticipated that they would begin to invest in the second half of this year, and we no longer believe that to be true.

至於試圖細分每個部分所佔的百分比——這三個部分，包括消化問題以及電信和 SP 部分，老實說，我認為這很難做到。不過，我想說的是，我們認為高庫存水準的消耗應該在本財政年度結束前完成。我們認為，SP 電信公司－SP 電信公司和有線電視方面，我們希望在 25 年他們能夠再次開始投資。我們原本預計他們會在今年下半年開始投資，但現在我們不再相信這是真的。

And I think that -- so I think the consumption issue and the SP thing -- or the consumption issue is temporary through the end of the year. The macro thing is one that we're going to have to wait and see and the SP telco probably similarly. And all of these things led us obviously to reset the second half of the year.

我認為——所以我認為消費問題和 SP 問題——或者消費問題在年底前是暫時的。對於宏觀因素，我們還需要拭目以待，而 SP 電信公司的情況可能也類似。所有這些事情顯然促使我們重新規劃下半年。

On the NVIDIA partnership, it is definitely Ethernet. I was in the meeting when we first talked about this with Jensen, and he agreed that we would include our Ethernet technology with their GPUs and creating the stack. There will also be servers as well, and there'll be multiple versions of this over time. So -- but it will include our Ethernet technology when they're connecting multiple clusters.

在與 NVIDIA 的合作中，肯定是乙太網路。當我們第一次與 Jensen 討論這個問題時，我正在開會，他同意我們將乙太網路技術與他們的 GPU 結合並創建堆疊。還會有伺服器，並且隨著時間的推移會有多個版本。所以——但是當他們連接多個叢集時它將包括我們的乙太網路技術。

Meta Marshall with Morgan Stanley.

摩根士丹利的 Meta Marshall。

Maybe you've mentioned service provider, but I guess -- just getting a sense of whether you're seeing more weakness on data center or edge or if it comes to kind of the 5 investment priorities that you had noted that enterprises had a couple of quarters ago. Are any one of those areas still getting prioritized significantly versus not getting prioritized significantly? And then just maybe as a second question, how are you seeing enterprises think about AI and think about where the budgets for AI are coming from? Just any commentary would be helpful there.

也許您提到了服務供應商，但我想——只是想了解您是否看到資料中心或邊緣的更多弱點，或者是否涉及到您在幾個季度前指出的企業的 5 個投資重點。這些領域中是否有任何一個領域仍受到優先重視，或是沒有優先重視？那麼也許作為第二個問題，您如何看待企業對人工智慧的看法以及人工智慧的預算來自哪裡？任何評論都會有幫助。

Yes. Thanks, Meta. So I would say that what we do see customers investing in is clearly cybersecurity. We see Observability as you saw the 16% growth rate. We even saw Collaboration positive this quarter, which was a good sign. They are at various phases of still dealing with this hybrid work situation. We had a very strong quarter with our devices, our video device businesses.

是的。謝謝，Meta。所以我想說，我們確實看到客戶投資的顯然是網路安全。我們看到可觀察性就像您看到的 16% 的成長率一樣。我們甚至看到本季的合作是積極的，這是一個好兆頭。他們仍處於應對這種混合工作狀況的不同階段。本季度，我們的設備和視訊設備業務表現非常強勁。

We see customers investing in their customer experience through technologies like contact center. And so we see a lot of that. We see customers continuing to invest in their application rearchitecture, which leads to both Observability opportunities as well as the re-architecture of their networks to deal with the traffic flows that we've been talking about for a couple of years. I think the real issue right now is that we ship so much networking in our core business that, that's where the challenge is, that they're just trying to get all that implemented right now.

我們看到客戶透過聯絡中心等技術投資於客戶體驗。我們看到了很多這樣的情況。我們看到客戶繼續投資於他們的應用程式架構，這不僅帶來了可觀察性機會，也帶來了網路架構的重新設計，以處理我們幾年來一直在談論的流量。我認為現在真正的問題是我們的核心業務中提供了太多的網絡，這就是挑戰所在，他們現在只是試圖將所有這些都實施起來。

As it relates to the enterprise and how they're thinking about AI, what I would tell you is that over the last 90 days, we began to see the pipeline for AI use cases in the enterprise began to emerge. And there's heavy work going on in financial services. I would say it's early in what they're trying to think through, but we are seeing opportunities arise. And I think that there have been some comments, not enough for me to translate this to a massive trend, but there were some comments from some of our field teams that they see customers holding budget back just to be ready to expend it on AI once they get their strategy fully baked. So that's about what I could tell you at this point.

至於它與企業以及他們對人工智慧的看法，我想告訴你的是，在過去的 90 天裡，我們開始看到企業中人工智慧用例的管道開始出現。金融服務業的工作也很繁重。我想說他們還在早期階段思考，但我們已經看到機會的出現。我認為已經有一些評論，但不足以讓我將其轉化為一種大規模趨勢，但我們的一些現場團隊有一些評論說，他們看到客戶保留預算只是為了準備在戰略完全成熟後將其花在人工智慧上。這就是我現在能告訴你的。

David Vogt with UBS.

瑞銀的 David Vogt。

So maybe I just want to step back for a second, Chuck, and maybe for Scott also. If I look at your guide for this year, I mean, we're basically back to fiscal '19 revenue levels. So I'm just trying to think about how your longer-term model works in the context of that 5% to 7% guide that you laid out at the investor briefing a number of years ago as sort of customers digest product.

所以也許我只是想退一步，查克，也許對斯科特也是如此。如果我看一下您今年的指南，我的意思是，我們基本上回到了 2019 財年的收入水平。因此，我只是試著思考一下，在幾年前的投資者簡報會上，您提出的 5% 到 7% 的指導方針背景下，您的長期模型是如何運作的，作為客戶消化產品。

Obviously, it would suggest that maybe there's some more share loss going on in the core networking portfolio, given some of the other parts of the business has grown. So I just want to kind of try to get a sense of how you're thinking about the portfolio today, given we're kind of back to fiscal '19. And then from a profitability standpoint, obviously, you've done a tremendous job, and I would imagine the cost cutting goes along those lines to keep margins higher. But is there an opportunity to use margin and maybe price going forward to take back some of the share if there's a disruption in the market by a potential strategic transaction in the marketplace today?

顯然，考慮到業務的其他部分已經成長，這表明核心網路產品組合的份額可能會進一步損失。因此，鑑於我們已經回到了 19 財年，我只是想嘗試了解您對當今投資組合的看法。然後從獲利能力的角度來看，顯然你已經做了大量的工作，我想削減成本也會沿著這條路線進行，以保持更高的利潤率。但是，如果目前市場上潛在的策略交易導致市場混亂，是否有機會利用利潤率甚至價格來收回部分份額？

Yes. David, I'll start and then Chuck, you can chime in on share. The way to think about the 5% to 7%, if you go back to when we gave that metric, you remember, it was in 2021, actually pre all of the supply chain volatility that we've seen. And since then, of course, we've seen the supply chain set in, which caused a spike in product orders and then a subsequent big building up of our backlog. As we cleared the backlog, we saw a spike in revenue. And so it's been difficult to look at year-on-year compares as all those dynamics were going on.

是的。大衛，我先開始，然後查克，你可以加入分享。關於 5% 到 7% 的思考方式，如果你回顧我們給出這個指標的時候，你會記得，那是在 2021 年，實際上是在我們所看到的所有供應鏈波動之前。當然，從那時起，我們就看到供應鏈開始運作，這導致產品訂單激增，進而導致我們的積壓訂單大量增加。當我們清理完積壓的工作後，我們的收入就大幅增加。因此，由於所有這些動態都在發生，因此很難進行同比比較。

What we're seeing now is as we've cleared the backlog, and we cleared it very quickly, given the strength of our supply chain team, that bottleneck has just moved downstream. So I don't think you can look at this year's revenue and try to somehow compare it to historical because of all the moving parts underneath the covers. What underpinned that 5% to 7% when we gave it to you was that's the aggregated growth of the TAM of the markets that we play in, right? And so at this point, we still see that as the longer term where we're headed.

我們現在看到的情況是，我們已經清理了積壓訂單，而且我們清理得非常快，考慮到我們供應鏈團隊的實力，瓶頸已經向下游轉移。因此，我認為你不能只看今年的收入，然後試圖將其與歷史收入進行比較，因為其中隱藏著各種變動因素。當我們向您提供 5% 到 7% 的成長率時，其基礎是我們所涉足的市場 TAM 的整體成長率，對嗎？因此，就目前而言，我們仍然認為這是我們長期的發展方向。

I think looking at year-on-year growth rates, I don't think you're going to see those growth rates begin to normalize until we work through the inventory that's in the field right now, which is one of the biggest headwinds we've got, right? And then we can get back to regular ordering and then you need to lap that, right? You need to go 4 quarters out to be able to compare it to a more normalized point. So I think that's the way you need to think about that longer term. But there's no change at this point. We'll update the longer-term model after we finish the acquisition of Splunk and can give you better insight into what we look like as a combined company.

我認為，從同比增長率來看，在我們處理完目前現場的庫存之前，我認為你不會看到這些增長率開始正常化，這是我們面臨的最大阻力之一，對吧？然後我們可以恢復正常訂購，然後您需要將其重疊，對嗎？您需要經過 4 個季度才能將其與更正常的點進行比較。所以我認為這是你需要從長遠角度考慮的問題。但目前還沒有任何變化。在完成對 Splunk 的收購後，我們將更新長期模型，以便讓您更了解合併後的公司情況。

Yes. David, on the share loss, I think if you look at the -- just look at the last published reports that came out after Q...

是的。大衛，關於股價下跌，我想如果你看一下——只要看看 Q 之後發布的最新報告…

3, calendar.

3、日曆。

Calendar Q3, in our 4 largest markets -- so if you take campus switching, you take wireless and you take SP routing, we actually gained share. So I don't know where the share loss thesis is coming from. When you look at data center switching, you will see it show up as a share loss. But to be -- we have to understand that one of our major competitors there reports their webscale sales into data center switching, and we report our webscale sales into SP routing. So those turn into sort of apples and oranges categories. But the others, based on the last reports that were put out, we actually have gained share if you look at a rolling 4 quarter even over the last 3 years.

日曆第三季度，在我們最大的 4 個市場中 - 如果您採用校園交換，採用無線和採用 SP 路由，我們實際上獲得了份額。所以我不知道份額損失的論點從何而來。當您查看資料中心切換時，您會看到它顯示為份額損失。但我們必須明白，我們的主要競爭對手之一將其網路規模銷售報告到資料中心交換領域，而我們將我們的網路規模銷售報告到 SP 路由領域。所以這些就變成蘋果和橘子的類別了。但根據最近發布的報告，如果查看過去 3 年連續 4 個季度的數據，我們的市佔率實際上有所增加。

Simon Leopold with Raymond James.

西蒙·利奧波德和雷蒙德·詹姆斯。

I've got an easy one and a little bit harder one. I'll start with the easy one and then ask the other. It just looks like your order trajectory is getting somewhat better. So the orders this quarter, down 12%, not too bad. And I know you don't forecast orders, but maybe if you can talk about when you expect orders could turn positive again, given the comparison and the trend.

我有一個簡單一點的，還有一個稍微難一點的。我先問簡單的，然後再問其他的。看起來您的訂單軌跡正在變得更好。因此本季的訂單下降了12%，還不算太糟。我知道您沒有預測訂單，但根據比較和趨勢，您能否談談您預計訂單何時會再次轉為正值？

The other question I wanted to see if you could discuss how you envision the AI clusters in terms of will the webscale operators choose multiple vendors in a single cluster or will they designate maybe different data centers to different suppliers? Or will they mix and match? How do you see the split playing out, particularly in the hyperscale opportunity? And I really mean this more longer term, '25, '26, not currently when we're dominated by InfiniBand, but when Ethernet starts taking more share.

另一個問題是，您是否可以討論一下您對 AI 叢集的設想，即網路規模營運商是否會在單一叢集中選擇多個供應商，或者他們是否會將不同的資料中心指定給不同的供應商？或者它們會混合搭配嗎？您如何看待這種分裂，特別是在超大規模機會方面？我實際上指的是更長遠的目標，即 25 年、26 年，不是目前我們被 InfiniBand 主導的時候，而是乙太網路開始佔據更多份額的時候。

Yes. Thanks, Simon. So on the order trajectory, I think what -- we clearly don't guide bookings. But what I would tell you is that even as our teams modified their second half outlook, the second half will still be more favorable than the first half. So your assessment of sort of the trajectory, I think, is valid, and I'll leave it at that.

是的。謝謝，西蒙。因此，在訂單軌跡上，我認為——我們顯然不會指導預訂。但我想告訴你們的是，即使我們的球隊修改了對下半場的預測，下半場的表現仍然會比上半場更有利。所以我認為你對某種軌蹟的評估是正確的，我就不多說了。

On the AI clusters, I think it's a good question because what you'll hear is us and competitors talking about a number of webscale players that are using our technology underneath GPUs, our Ethernet technology underneath GPUs. And so I think it's important to remember they always tend to have a dual vendor strategy. They always want 2 sources. And so we're both actually -- the 2 of us are actually playing in this space today. And I'd say today, they're completely homogenous clusters. And I think it's too early to tell whether there will be some benefit over time for them to mix those. My sense is, unless there's something that changes significantly or there's some sort of technology reason for GPUs to be mixed, which I can't speak to at this point, I don't think the underlying network will be mixed. I just don't think there's any benefit for them to do that.

關於 AI 集群，我認為這是一個很好的問題，因為你會聽到我們和競爭對手談論許多在 GPU 下使用我們的技術、在 GPU 下使用乙太網路技術的網路規模參與者。因此我認為重要的是要記住他們總是傾向於雙供應商策略。他們總是想要兩個來源。所以實際上我們兩個——今天我們兩個實際上都在這個空間裡玩耍。今天我想說，它們是完全同質的集群。我認為現在判斷隨著時間的推移將這些混合起來是否會帶來好處還為時過早。我的感覺是，除非發生重大變化，或者由於某種技術原因需要混合 GPU（目前我還無法談論這一點），否則我認為底層網路不會混合。我只是認為他們這樣做沒有任何好處。

Tal Liani with Bank of America.

美國銀行的 Tal Liani。

I have 2 questions. The first one is Security. The market is great. And we met 2 years ago and 3 years ago when you spoke about new strategy and going to market, but it's still only growing 3%. What is happening there? And what can you do to fix Security and benefit from this market growth? And then maybe I'll ask my follow-up.

我有兩個問題。第一個是安全。市場很棒。我們兩年前和三年前見過面，當時您談到了新策略和行銷，但目前成長率仍只有 3%。那裡發生了什麼事？您可以做些什麼來解決安全問題並從這個市場成長中獲益？然後我可能會問我的後續問題。

Okay. Thanks, Tal. So I think over the last few quarters, I've been pretty consistent that we thought the second half of this fiscal year, we would start to see an acceleration of Security, and I can give you some highlights where we are seeing some of that -- some green shoots early. Some of the new innovation like XDR and Secure Access, Multicloud Defense suites are -- we're seeing good pipeline build with those technologies.

好的。謝謝，塔爾。因此，我認為在過去幾個季度中，我一直非常一致地認為，在本財年下半年，我們將開始看到安全方面的加速發展，我可以向你們介紹一些我們所看到的亮點——一些早期的綠芽。一些新的創新，如 XDR 和安全存取、多雲防禦套件——我們看到利用這些技術建立了良好的管道。

XDR, we now -- we announced that in April of last year, we shipped it in August, and we have 230 customers, 230-plus customers on the platform today. And the important thing to remember is that it's a big platform play. And we actually typically see that as a 6- to 9-month sales cycle. So to have 230 customers already, I think, is a statement on the value that our customers are seeing. That's going to be a real important integration point with Splunk, by the way. So that we see. We see -- we feel good about the pipeline.

XDR，我們現在——我們在去年 4 月宣布，我們在 8 月發貨，今天我們的平台上有 230 個客戶，230 多個客戶。需要記住的重要一點是，這是一個大型平台遊戲。實際上，我們通常將其視為 6 到 9 個月的銷售週期。因此，我認為，已經擁有 230 名客戶就證明了我們的客戶所看到的價值。順便說一句，這將成為與 Splunk 的一個真正重要的整合點。以便我們看見。我們看到——我們對這條管道感覺很好。

From a demand perspective, just to give you some insight, the Americas, the demand was almost double digits this past quarter, which is the highest we've seen in a while. So I think we're seeing a lot of good indicators. And if you just watch over the next 6 to 9 months, you're going to see more and more innovation that comes out. And I think you'll begin to believe and see the results around that same time frame.

從需求角度來看，僅供大家了解一下，美洲的需求在過去一個季度幾乎達到了兩位數，這是我們一段時間以來看到的最高水準。所以我認為我們看到了很多好的指標。如果你關注未來 6 到 9 個月，你會看到越來越多的創新出現。我認為您會開始相信並在同一時間段內看到結果。

Samik Chatterjee with JPMorgan.

摩根大通的 Samik Chatterjee。

Chuck, I'm going to, for my first question, ask you to go back to sort of the drivers of demand that you're seeing here. We walked away from the call last time sensing a sense of optimism about a sharp rebound when you see the inventory digestion complete. But I guess what I'm hearing from you today is even as that inventory digestion ends in fiscal '24, you're seeing a bit more of a macro impact on your customer demand. And are your expectations still sort of intact in terms of thinking about a more sharp rebound as you go into fiscal '25, if you can share what you're seeing from customers there?

查克，我的第一個問題是請你回顧一下你在這裡看到的需求驅動因素。上次我們結束通話時，感覺到了對庫存消化完成後大幅反彈的樂觀情緒。但我想我今天從您那裡聽到的是，即使庫存消化在 24 財年結束，您仍會看到對客戶需求產生更大的宏觀影響。並且，您是否仍然認為在進入 25 財年時會出現更強勁的反彈，您是否可以分享您從客戶那裡看到的情況？

And for my follow-up, the NVIDIA partnership, how should we think about the impact of that on your AI order target of $1 billion? Or is it really most of that partnership that realizes beyond that sort of target window, target time frame?

對於我的後續問題，與 NVIDIA 的合作關係，我們應該如何看待這對您 10 億美元 AI 訂單目標的影響？或者說，大多數合作關係是否真的能夠在目標窗口、目標時間框架之外實現？

Thanks. I would say on the -- the thing that's changed from last quarter is that we do just see a little more caution with our customers. I don't want to over-rotate and say that it's a massive shift, but we definitely saw more caution. We talked with our sales leaders ahead of the call, and they indicate -- we asked them point-blank, was there more caution or the same caution from the prior quarter? And we heard more, a little bit more. And then we saw the pushout of the forecast. So that just tells us that there is a little bit more in the system. So therefore, I think we need a couple of quarters to see it play out before we can declare what's going to happen in fiscal '25.

謝謝。我想說的是——與上一季相比，變化的是，我們確實看到我們對客戶更加謹慎了。我不想過度誇大並說這是一個巨大的轉變，但我們確實看到了更多的謹慎。我們在電話會議之前與銷售主管進行了交談，他們表示——我們直截了當地問他們，是否比上一季更加謹慎，還是保持同樣的謹慎？我們聽到了更多，更多一點。然後我們看到了預測的延遲。這只是告訴我們系統還有更多內容。因此，我認為我們需要幾個季度的時間來觀察其發展情況，然後才能宣布 2025 財年會發生什麼。

On the NVIDIA discussion, a couple of comments. We talked about the $1 billion of orders, which I know someone is going to ask me about at some point. And what I would say is that in the last 90 days, our pipeline of AI opportunities continue to grow. The pipeline is now almost 3x that particular number that we gave last time, which were more orders that we see in '25. The total pipeline is now about 3x that, roughly 3x that. And I would say that virtually none of that is anything associated with the NVIDIA partnership yet. It's all independent of that.

關於 NVIDIA 的討論，有幾點評論。我們談到了 10 億美元的訂單，我知道有人會在某個時候問我這個問題。我想說的是，在過去的 90 天裡，我們的人工智慧機會管道不斷成長。現在的管道數量幾乎是我們上次給出的具體數字的 3 倍，比我們在 25 年看到的訂單還要多。現在總管道數量大約是這個數字的 3 倍，大約是這個數字的 3 倍。我想說的是，這些其實都與 NVIDIA 合作關係無關。這一切都與此無關。

Ben Reitzes with Melius Research.

Ben Reitzes 的 Melius Research。

Chuck, Scott, I wanted to ask about the HPE-Juniper deal. Are you seeing any uncertainty in the market near term? And how do you think that helps you long term? And if you -- Chuck, if you don't mind, just with regard to that last AI comment, your -- one of your competitors, obviously, is expecting quite a big pick up next year, next calendar year. Do you feel like that AI $3 billion in pipeline or so kicks in next year, next calendar year? Or what's your timing on that?

查克、史考特，我想問 HPE-Juniper 交易的狀況。您是否發現近期市場有任何不確定性？您認為這對您長期有何幫助？如果你——查克，如果你不介意的話，僅就最後一個人工智慧評論而言，你的——你的一個競爭對手顯然預計明年，也就是下一個日曆年會有相當大的成長。您是否認為人工智慧領域約 30 億美元的投資計畫將在明年或下個自然年啟動？或是你的時間安排是怎樣的？

Thanks, Ben. So I would say on the HPE-Juniper deal, the one area where they have meaningful overlap is in wireless, and I don't know if there's any connection to the fact that we had a 50% increase in $1 million-plus wireless deals sequentially. So it's hard to say. But I mean there is a lot of noise in the system or in the industry about what they do there, but I can't say specifically that any customers have talked to me about it, to be honest. So I think we're -- I think it's a little early for them to -- for the customers to be expressing that concern. They may be asking them directly, but they're not talking to us.

謝謝，本。因此我想說，就 HPE 與 Juniper 的交易而言，他們之間存在重大重疊的一個領域是無線領域，我不知道這是否與我們連續 100 萬美元以上的無線交易增長 50% 有關。所以很難說。但我的意思是，系統或行業中有很多關於他們所做的事情的喧囂，但老實說，我不能具體說有任何客戶與我談過這件事。所以我認為——我認為他們——讓顧客表達這種擔憂還為時過早。他們可能會直接詢問他們，但他們並沒有與我們交談。

On the timing, yes, I think we said fiscal '25, which starts in August of this year. And I think you probably should assume most of that is probably in the second half, I would guess, but we'll see how things play out. I think customers are going to move as fast as they possibly can, but we're still in the early strategy and planning stages right now on most of it. The pipeline stuff are well-defined use cases that are already in place with certain customers, and we're actually just working through the opportunities.

關於時間，是的，我想我們說的是 25 財年，也就是今年 8 月開始。我認為你可能應該假設其中大部分可能發生在下半年，我猜，但我們會看看事情如何發展。我認為客戶會盡可能快地採取行動，但目前我們仍處於大部分工作的早期策略和規劃階段。管道內容是明確定義的用例，某些客戶已經具備這些用例，我們實際上只是在努力抓住機會。

Yes. But Ben, our expectation is the majority of that $1 billion in orders will turn into revenue in our fiscal '25, just to be clear.

是的。但本，為了明確起見，我們預計這 10 億美元訂單中的大部分將在 2025 財年轉化為營收。

Matt Niknam with Deutsche Bank.

德意志銀行的 Matt Niknam。

I'll keep it to one and one follow-up. So main question, just around inventory digestion. Is that dynamic primarily affecting enterprise and commercial customers? And can you talk a little bit about the visibility you've got towards this actually resolving itself by fiscal year-end? And then a follow-up just on gross margins. You were fairly stable sequentially, and I think the guide implies more of the same. So I'm just wondering, are we now largely past a lot of the supply chain dynamics or headwinds? Or has anything changed on the supply chain front?

我會堅持逐一跟進。所以主要問題只是圍繞著庫存消化。這種動態主要影響企業和商業客戶嗎？您能否稍微談談您對在財政年度結束時真正解決這個問題的預期？然後是關於毛利率的後續問題。您的狀態一直相當穩定，我認為指南也暗示了更多相同的情況。所以我只是想知道，我們現在是否已經基本上擺脫了許多供應鏈動態或逆風？或者供應鏈方面有變化嗎？

Yes. So I'll take the first, and then Scott, you can take the second. On the inventory digestion issue, I think it's -- I would say it's largely an enterprise and a service provider issue. And particularly the cloud providers, we think they've got probably in excess of 20-plus weeks of inventory that they're working through right now as they built up when the lead times were so long.

是的。所以我選擇第一個，然後斯科特，你可以選擇第二個。關於庫存消化問題，我認為這主要是企業和服務提供者的問題。特別是雲端供應商，我們認為他們可能有超過 20 週的庫存，他們現在正在處理這些庫存，因為他們在交貨期很長的情況下累積了這些庫存。

We have a lot of our enterprise products that are tethered to the cloud for management perspectives. And so we see the lag between when we ship it to the customer and when they connected. I gave the Meraki example in my prepared remarks. And so we do have visibility, and we can actually see on some aspects of the portfolio how the time frame between shipments and connectivity is shrinking, and it's not shrinking as fast as we thought it would, which leads us to believe this is going to extend through the end of '24. So that's where we are. Scott, gross margins?

為了方便管理，我們的許多企業產品都與雲端相連。因此，我們看到了將產品發送給客戶和客戶連線之間存在的延遲。我在準備好的發言中給了 Meraki 的例子。因此，我們確實具有可見性，並且我們實際上可以從產品組合的某些方面看到，發貨和連接之間的時間框架正在縮短，而且縮短的速度沒有我們想像的那麼快，這讓我們相信這種情況將延續到 24 年底。這就是我們現在的狀況。史考特，毛利率是多少？

Yes. What you saw in the quarter is, of course, gross margins continue to show a year-on-year improving trend, roughly flat, as you said, sequentially. There's a couple of dynamics. But to your question on where does this settle in, I think it settles in, in the range we're in right now, in the 66% to 67% range through the end of the year. There's both the things that are happening from a freight and delivery standpoint, freight costs with what's happening in the Red Sea have gone up slightly, and we continue to see a little bit of component pressure, although in the commodity sections, we're seeing some benefit there.

是的。當然，您在本季看到的是，毛利率繼續呈現同比改善趨勢，正如您所說，與上一季基本持平。有幾個動態。但對於你關於這個數字將穩定在何處的問題，我認為它將穩定在我們現在所處的範圍內，到今年年底將在 66% 到 67% 的範圍內。從貨運和交貨的角度來看，紅海發生的事件導致貨運成本略有上升，我們繼續看到一些零件壓力，儘管在商品領域，我們看到了一些好處。

The scale of the services ramp-up, as you -- obviously, services revenue trails the product revenue. We had those 3 really strong quarters of product revenue growth. We're seeing the tail of that now in our services revenue growth. And since a lot of the cost underneath our services are fixed, you get better leverage when that happens. So I think when you add all those together, we should settle in, in the 66% to 67% range. And the majority of, if not all of the supply chain constraints that we felt are behind us at this point.

服務規模不斷擴大，顯然服務收入落後於產品收入。我們的產品收入在過去三個季度成長非常強勁。我們現在在服務收入成長中看到了這一趨勢的尾聲。由於我們服務的大部分成本都是固定的，因此當這種情況發生時，您可以獲得更好的槓桿作用。所以我認為，當你把所有這些加在一起時，我們應該穩定在 66% 到 67% 的範圍內。目前，我們認為的大多數（如果不是全部）供應鏈限制都已經過去了。

Michael Ng with Goldman Sachs.

高盛 (Goldman Sachs) 的麥可吳 (Michael Ng)。

I just have 2. First, just on the revenue guidance. I think based on the midpoint of it, the implied fiscal 4Q revenue guidance only implies about plus 1% quarter-on-quarter. Given that we're back to a normal backlog, what's preventing that from going back to a more normal level of seasonality? And then as a follow-up to Amit's question earlier on the NVIDIA AI deal, I just wanted to clarify. I understand that it's Ethernet, but will it be both NVIDIA's Spectrum-X as well as Cisco's Ethernet? And how will that be sold together, if that's the correct assumption?

我只有 2 個問題。首先，關於收入指導。我認為，基於其中點，隱含的第四季財報營收指引僅意味著季增約 1%。鑑於我們已經恢復到正常的積壓狀態，那麼是什麼阻礙了它恢復到更正常的季節性水平？然後，作為對 Amit 之前關於 NVIDIA AI 交易的問題的跟進，我只是想澄清一下。我知道它是以太網，但它會是 NVIDIA 的 Spectrum-X 和思科的乙太網路嗎？如果這是正確的假設，那麼如何將它們一起出售？

Michael, on the midpoint of the revenue guide, the math would lead you to what you just said. I think no one ever wants to have to reset guidance, much less have to do it twice. We -- as Chuck just said, as we look at all the various factors coming in from the field, we see caution. And I think you should expect that there's caution in our guide at this point.

邁克爾，關於收入指南的中點，數學計算會引導你得出剛才所說的結果。我認為沒有人願意重新設定指導，更不用說重新設定兩次了。正如查克剛才所說，當我們審視來自該領域的所有各種因素時，我們看到了謹慎的態度。我認為您應該預料到我們的指南此時會很謹慎。

On the NVIDIA front, I think, look, one of the key benefits that they see is leveraging our enterprise go-to market and our global ecosystem and partner community. And therefore, when we are -- when these solutions are flowing through our channels and our sales teams and our partners, it will be Cisco Ethernet.

在 NVIDIA 方面，我認為，他們看到的一個主要好處是利用我們的企業市場以及我們的全球生態系統和合作夥伴社群。因此，當這些解決方案流經我們的通路、銷售團隊和合作夥伴時，它將是思科乙太網路。

George Notter with Jefferies.

傑富瑞 (Jefferies) 的喬治諾特 (George Notter)。

I guess I'm just curious about -- are there any mechanisms or activities you guys are using to help accelerate the clearance of inventory from the channel? Any price discounting, any rebating, stock rotation? How are you taking an active approach here?

我想我只是好奇——你們是否使用什麼機製或活動來幫助加速渠道庫存清理？有任何價格折扣、回饋、庫存週轉嗎？您在這裡如何採取積極主動的方式？

I'll comment -- I'll make one quick comment. I think I said this in my prepared remarks as well. We've deployed a lot of transaction services for some of our larger customers just to help them do that. And I know that our sales teams were talking this week, Scott, maybe you remember or you have some more detail on looking at some partner incentives to help?

我會發表評論——我會發表一個簡短的評論。我想我在準備好的發言中也說過這一點。我們為一些較大的客戶部署了許多交易服務，就是為了幫助他們做到這一點。我知道我們的銷售團隊本周正在討論，斯科特，也許你還記得，或者你有一些關於尋求合作夥伴激勵措施的詳細信息？

Yes. We absolutely are working with the field on that. In a lot of cases, it boils down to a lack of the skilled resources required at both -- sometimes at our partner level, sometimes at the customer level to get that done. There's only so much you can do to accelerate it. We have put in place incentives to make that accelerate. To your other point on cancellations or stock rotation, we're seeing those continuing to be well below where they were prepandemic. So we're not seeing any of that -- any pressure on that front.

是的。我們絕對正在與該領域合作。在許多情況下，這歸結為雙方都缺乏完成這項工作所需的熟練資源——有時是我們的合作夥伴層面，有時是客戶層面。你能做的只有盡力加速它。我們已經制定了激勵措施來加速這一進程。關於您提到的取消訂單或庫存週轉量，我們發現這些數量仍然遠低於疫情前的水準。因此，我們沒有看到任何這方面的壓力。

Woo Jin Ho with Bloomberg Intelligence.

彭博產業研究的 Woo Jin Ho。

Given that most of the weakness is going to be on the networking side, could you just talk a little bit more about the future software subscription renewal rates? You did a good job this quarter with software subscriptions going up 5%, but given that networking is poised to be down, I'm curious where that's heading going forward.

鑑於大部分弱點都出現在網路方面，您能否再多談談未來軟體訂閱續訂率？本季你們做得很好，軟體訂閱量成長了 5%，但考慮到網路訂閱量即將下降，我很好奇未來的發展方向。

Yes. I think -- thanks for the question, Woo Jin. I think the way to think about it is we put a -- as you can imagine, when you built up the level of annualized recurring revenue that we have, we've put a huge amount of focus on both customer success and driving adoption and then turning that adoption into renewals. We've invested fairly heavily in that space over the last couple of years, and we're seeing renewal rates respond accordingly.

是的。我認為——感謝 Woo Jin 提出這個問題。我認為思考這個問題的方式是——正如你所想像的，當你建立了我們所擁有的年度經常性收入水平時，我們將大量的注意力放在客戶成功和推動採用上，然後將這種採用轉化為續約。過去幾年，我們在該領域投入了相當大的資金，我們看到續約率也做出了相應的反應。

When you look at where we're more software-heavy outside of networking, but in both security and collab, as you saw, we reported growth -- revenue growth in both of those categories. Observability is almost exclusively software, and we posted 16% revenue growth in observability. So we are seeing that actually trend in the right direction.

當您查看我們在網路之外的軟體業務量較大的領域，但在安全和協作領域，正如您所看到的，我們報告了成長——這兩個類別的收入都在增長。可觀察性幾乎完全是軟體，我們的可觀察性收入增加了 16%。因此，我們看到趨勢實際上正朝著正確的方向發展。

Tim Long with Barclays.

巴克萊銀行的提姆朗。

One question, one follow-up. So first, maybe, Chuck, can you talk a little bit about the kind of margin growth trade-off with the head count reduction? Obviously protecting margin here, but how do you think about that trade-off given the challenging growth we've seen? And then just on a follow-up with all of the AI comments, Chuck, could you just remind us kind of where we are with -- from a product standpoint, are you seeing more traction for Silicon One or software or the full system products? If you could just give us a little color on kind of where you're seeing that pipeline growing?

一個問題，一個後續行動。那麼首先，查克，您能否談談利潤成長與員工人數減少之間的權衡？顯然，這是為了保護利潤，但考慮到我們所看到的挑戰性成長，您如何看待這種權衡？然後，在跟進所有有關人工智慧的評論時，查克，您能否提醒我們目前的狀況——從產品的角度來看，您是否看到 Silicon One 或軟體或完整系統產品的更多吸引力？您能否向我們稍微介紹一下您所看到的該管道的成長情況？

Yes. Thanks, Tim. So on the margin growth trade-off, we're always considering that, and we're very disciplined, though. And we think that gross margins are clearly a reflection of the value that your customers see and your technology and what you deliver. And if you look at a lot of our competitors and you look at some of the market share -- I mean, some of the gross margins that they have, that tells you that they're viewed more as a commodity. And I think that our customers see real value in what we deliver to them. So while we always look at margins versus growth, we also are -- we're just disciplined across both.

是的。謝謝，蒂姆。因此，在利潤率成長權衡方面，我們始終在考慮這一點，而且我們非常自律。我們認為毛利率清楚地反映了您的客戶看到的價值、您的技術和您提供的產品。如果你看看我們的許多競爭對手，看看他們的市場份額——我的意思是，他們的毛利率，你會發現他們更多地被視為一種商品。我認為我們的客戶看到了我們向他們提供的產品的真正價值。因此，雖然我們總是關注利潤率與成長率，但我們也——我們對兩者都很嚴格。

On the AI front, Silicon One is a big play, clearly. We've delivered next-generation silicon into several of the cloud providers right now. We've got the Ethernet running in 3 of the 4 big ones. And we'll use the same silicon in the enterprise data center over time.

在人工智慧領域，Silicon One 顯然是一個巨大的機會。我們目前已向多家雲端供應商提供了下一代矽片。我們在四大網路中的三個網路中都運行著乙太網路。並且我們將隨著時間的推移在企業資料中心使用相同的矽片。

We've got GPUs in our UCS platforms. And so it's evolving, but we have -- I tell our teams, unlike the original cloud transition that we talked on this call several times about how we were not prepared for the infrastructure play in the cloud world, I think we are absolutely ready and well equipped to succeed in this transition to AI. It will be a tailwind for us as we get into it over time.

我們的 UCS 平台中配備了 GPU。所以它正在不斷發展，但是我們已經——我告訴我們的團隊，與我們在這次電話會議上多次談到的最初的雲端轉型不同，我們沒有為雲端世界中的基礎設施發揮作用做好準備，我認為我們已經做好了充分的準備，能夠在向人工智慧的轉型中取得成功。隨著我們逐漸深入其中，這將成為我們的順風。

Our next question comes from Aaron Rakers with Wells Fargo.

我們的下一個問題來自富國銀行的 Aaron Rakers。

I'll stick to one, just building on that last question. I know over periods of time, you've talked a little bit about how large your webscale business is. Can you just remind us again the presence you have in some of the webscale opportunities either from a size -- and maybe ex the AI discussion, what kind of growth rates you're seeing, particularly with those webscale customers right now?

我將堅持回答一個問題，只是基於最後一個問題。我知道一段時間以來，您曾談論過您的網路規模業務有多大。您能否再次提醒我們，您在一些網路規模機會中所佔的比例，無論是從規模還是從人工智慧討論來看，您看到的成長率是什麼樣的，特別是現在那些網路規模客戶？

So our team measures what -- their use cases or franchises or however you want to think about it, there are specific areas within the infrastructure that we identify for each of the webscale players. And Scott, keep me honest, I want to say we're designed into 16 or...

因此，我們的團隊會衡量他們的用例或特許經營權，或者無論您如何考慮，我們都會為每個網路規模參與者確定基礎設施內的特定領域。史考特，請讓我說實話，我想說我們被設計成 16 歲或...

21.

21.

21 of those. And so that's how I would think about it. I don't think that right now, if you looked at the growth numbers, they wouldn't be reflective of what's going on because they're just digesting inventory right now. So they're not in a position where they need to order a lot because lead times have normalized so much. So I don't think that's -- it's not even relevant. I think understanding those 21 use cases -- and as I said earlier, they want dual source, and they want dual source all the way down to the silicon level. In the traditional days with carriers, they wanted 2 vendors who would provide 2 different integrated systems. In this case, that may be the case with cloud, but they also look at silicon. They look at components. They're very deep on wanting to make sure that they have resiliency and optionality.

其中 21 個。這就是我的想法。我認為，現在如果你看一下成長數字，它們不會反映出正在發生的事情，因為他們現在只是在消化庫存。因此，他們不需要訂購大量產品，因為交貨時間已經非常正常化。所以我不認為這——這甚至不相關。我認為了解這 21 個用例 - 正如我之前所說，他們想要雙源，並且他們希望雙源一直到矽片級別。在傳統的營運商時代，他們希望有兩家供應商提供兩種不同的整合系統。在這種情況下，雲可能是這種情況，但他們也會關注矽。他們查看組件。他們非常希望確保自己具有彈性和可選性。

Aaron, the only thing I'd add is, and we said it earlier, there's no question that over time, given the way we're positioned, both from a complete box, a white box and a silicon standpoint, there's no question that AI is a tailwind for us longer term.

亞倫，我唯一想補充的是，我們之前說過，毫無疑問，隨著時間的推移，考慮到我們的定位，無論是從完整盒子、白盒子還是矽片的角度來看，毫無疑問，人工智慧對我們來說是長期的順風。

James Fish with Piper Sandler.

詹姆斯·菲什和派珀·桑德勒。

Scott, based on a couple of comments you made around gross margins. Just wondering, was supply chain starting to go the other way and supply more readily available? Could we see the price increases enacted in the past now have to be given back? And any sense to how should we think about the annualized cost savings on these reductions, understanding there are people here and it's difficulty and what areas you guys expect to kind of reduce down and if some of those reductions are filled elsewhere in terms of like a net basis on head count?

斯科特，根據你對毛利率提出的幾點評論。只是想知道，供應鏈是否開始朝另一個方向發展並且供應變得更容易獲得？我們是否看到過去實施的價格上漲現在必須被退回？我們應該如何看待這些裁員帶來的年度成本節約，了解這裡的人員和困難，以及你們希望減少哪些領域的人員，以及這些裁員是否會在其他地方得到填補，比如按淨員工人數計算？

Yes. On the price declines, you got to remember, go back to why we put the price increases in to begin with. And that was really to offset the higher cost that we were seeing from many of our suppliers as everyone was dealing with constraints, and supply/demand is pretty straightforward.

是的。關於價格下降，你必須記住，回到我們一開始為什麼要提高價格。這實際上是為了抵消我們從許多供應商看到的更高的成本，因為每個人都在應對限制，而供需關係非常簡單。

What we haven't seen in the wake of this, some of the commodities, the prices have come down. Memory is a good example. What we haven't seen broadly is cost decreases coming in from our providers at this point. And so with that -- and you see that reflected in our gross margins, which have returned to a more normal range, but are still sitting in that 66% to 67% range. So I'm not anticipating at this point price declines, pending significant cost declines coming into us.

我們沒有看到，有些商品的價格因此而下降。記憶就是一個很好的例子。目前，我們還沒有看到供應商的成本普遍下降。因此，您可以看到這反映在我們的毛利率上，毛利率已恢復到更正常的範圍，但仍在 66% 至 67% 的範圍內。因此，我目前預計價格不會下跌，等待成本大幅下降。

On the cost savings, you can see where we are year-to-date. We've got a -- if you just look at operating expenses for a minute, year-to-date, operating expenses are modestly up. And after working our way through the restructuring that we discussed today, for the full year, we think they'll be modestly down. So I think that's probably the right way to think about it as you're looking to build your model.

關於成本節約，您可以看到我們今年迄今為止的進展。我們有一個——如果你只看一下營運費用，年初至今，營運費用略有上升。在完成我們今天討論的重組之後，我們認為全年的支出將會小幅下降。因此，我認為當您想要建立模型時，這可能是正確的思考方式。

Thank you, Jim. Cisco's next quarterly conference call, which will reflect our fiscal year '24 third quarter results, will be on Wednesday, May 15, 2024, at 1:30 p.m. Pacific Time, 4:30 p.m. Eastern Time. This concludes today's call. If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact Cisco Investor Relations, and we thank you very much for joining the call today.

謝謝你，吉姆。思科的下一次季度電話會議將於 2024 年 5 月 15 日星期三下午 1:30 舉行，會議將反映我們 24 財年第三季的業績。太平洋時間下午 4:30東部時間。今天的電話會議到此結束。如果您有任何其他問題，請隨時聯繫思科投資者關係部，非常感謝您今天參加電話會議。

Thank you for participating on today's conference call. If you would like to listen to the call in its entirety, you may call (800) 876-5258. For participants dialing from outside the U.S., please dial (203) 369-3998. This concludes today's call. You may disconnect at this time.

感謝您參加今天的電話會議。如果您想完整收聽電話會議，可以撥打（800）876-5258。對於從美國境外撥打電話的參與者，請撥打 (203) 369-3998。今天的電話會議到此結束。您現在可以斷開連線。